He shook his head. “We will recruit people who we believe can help us, then open the floodgates to immigration,” he added. “But we will deal with people as individuals, not as groups or nations. Let everyone have a chance to stand on their own two feet.”
For a moment, he thought the President would ask him to explain, something Kevin had warned him to try to avoid. Ranting at the President would have been rather less than constructive, no matter how much he wanted to tell the President exactly what he thought of some of his more damaging polices.
“We have never forbidden emigration from the United States,” the President said. “And, if your new nation is no threat, we will certainly not start now.”
Steve nodded. “We have a great deal to offer you,” he said, “in exchange for your cooperation and assistance, when we need it.”
The President leaned forward, interested.
Steve allowed himself a smile. “There are three different gifts in the van, Mr. President,” he said. “One of them — the large box — is a portable cold fusion reactor, capable of putting out…”
The President’s jaw dropped. “A nuclear reactor?”
“It’s perfectly safe,” Steve said, with some amusement. He had to be the first person to smuggle a nuclear reactor onto an American military base. “As I was saying, the reactor is capable of putting out… well, it’s capable of putting out the same amount of power as the nuclear reactor on an aircraft carrier. Anything built with purely human technology would cost at least nine billion dollars and take years to complete, assuming it wasn’t politically sabotaged along the way. A handful of them would suffice to meet all of America’s power requirements, without any pesky nuclear waste, political problems or even terrorist threats.”
“I don’t believe this,” the President said, shaking his head. “A nuclear reactor the size of a small van?”
“Smaller than that,” Steve confirmed. “But you don’t have to take my word for it. The Foreign Technology Division will have fun experimenting with the power systems and figuring out that it does what it says on the tin. And there are two other items we brought along.”
He paused, then went on. “There are a number of room-temperature superconductors,” he continued. “They have quite a number of interesting applications, but the important one right now is that they can be used to build very effective batteries. One of them could be used to power a car for weeks, replacing gas… which would sharply reduce the West’s dependency on Middle Eastern oil. We could meet the requirements of the United States and our allies from local production, once the batteries were used to replace gas everywhere.”
“There would be political problems,” the President said, sourly.
Steve wasn’t surprised. The wealthy oil corporations and Arab states had worked hard to ensure that possible alternatives to oil were marginalised or simply disregarded. Introducing the fusion reactors and the batteries would have a whole series of effects on American society, perhaps even knocking over the oil corporations, which would render millions of people unemployed. It was unlikely that they would all want to go to space.
“We will not interfere in your decisions, Mr. President,” Steve said. “Or those of your successors, as long as they don’t threaten us.
“The final item is a set of medical treatments designed to eradicate cancer,” he added. “We can only produce them in small quantities so far, so if the CDC or someone else manages to figure out how to duplicate them we would be very pleased. Again, you don’t have to take my word for this. You can take the gifts, all of them, and test them freely, as you see fit. And how you use them is up to you.”
The President gave him an odd little smile. “You don’t have political ambitions?”
Steve hesitated, trying to put his thoughts into words. “Mr. President, I was raised to be independent, to live my life without support from outside the family,” he said. “My family’s motto might as well be Live and Let Live. Ever since I became politically aware, I realised that both the Republicans and the Democrats were intent on expanding the government’s authority, without expanding the political oversight. Politicians in Washington were acting more and more like untouchable aristocrats than elected leaders of our nation. Both parties were pushing for laws that divided society and turned Americans against one another.
“I was taught that everyone deserved a chance to seek their own place in society and to be considered on their own merits. The best and brightest would rise to the top, Mr. President, but that is no longer true in America. Every single person claims to be a victim now, claiming to face discrimination when they don’t get a job or when someone is mean to them or they see something that offends them. I could give you a hundred examples of policies put forward by politicians, from Affirmative Action to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, that have only undermined the positions of groups they were intended to help.
“But why have groups? Why insist that two people are different because of skin colour, gender, race or religion? Why not just have individuals?”
He paused. “We’re not interested in waging war on America, Mr. President, nor are we interested in attempting to reform the United States. I simply don’t believe the country can be reformed. Instead, we’re building a new society where those who wish to join us and live life on their own merits can do so. An escape hatch, if you like, from a society that is rapidly becoming intolerable.”
The President pressed his fingertips together. “You know, when I was younger, I used to read Atlas Shrugged. A guy I knew, a few years older than me, actually tried to set up a Galt’s Gulch of his own. It lasted barely a year, then fragmented.”
Steve nodded. “Why didn’t you go?”
“Because the system Rand suggested was unsustainable,” the President said. “She admired the men who spearheaded the production of goods to trade, but thought little of the men who made it work. The machinists, the factory workers, even the floor sweepers. All of them had their own role to play in making the production work.
“And my friend wasn’t the only one who tried to set up his own little commune. California is littered with the remains of such places. The only ones that succeeded, that achieved any measure of success, were the very low tech ones. And life there was hard.
He paused. “How do we know that your grand society is going to be different?”
Steve considered his answer carefully. Two days ago, he would have angrily denied that could ever be a possibility. But now… the President did have a point. Their society had already trembled, as tiny as it was, in the aftermath of the attack on the ranch. Another shock like that could destroy the nation he was trying to build.
“We don’t, Mr. President,” he admitted. “It is possible that our society will come apart. But unless we try, we will never know. We have high technology, we have a stream of recruits and we have plenty of ideas for expansion. And if we fail… at least we will have tried.”
“True enough, I suppose,” the President said. “Do you intend to go public?”
“I was hoping to remain secret a while longer,” Steve confessed. In hindsight, embarrassing so many federal agents might not have been a bright idea. Rumours were already spreading rapidly. “Why do you ask?”
“I would prefer to try to manage how the information is released to the public,” the President said. “We’re talking about the entire world being turned upside down.”